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Why You Should Eat Cottage Cheese Before Bed

Posted On: 2012-07-08 03:00

Cottage cheese is a cheese curd product with a mild flavor. It is drained, but not pressed so some whey remains. The curd is usually washed to remove acidity giving sweet curd cheese. It is not aged or colored. Different styles of cottage cheese are made from milks with different fat levels and in small curd or large curd preparations.

Cottage cheese is a slow digesting protein. A single serving can take 5-6 hours to digest. If you take it before bed, you body will be able to recieve protein throughout the night, avoiding catabolism (the breakdown of muscle). A cup of cottage cheese has about 30 grams of protein with very little carbs and fat.

As stated above, during the night your body enters a catabolic state as it repairs. To promote muscle building and avoid catabolism it’s important to have your nighttime blood amino acid levels as high as possible. A fast digesting protein will not last you through the night – heck, it won’t even last an hour! Therefore a slower digesting protein like casein is preferred. Casein takes hours to digest and is essentially a natural time released form of protein. The awesome thing about cottage cheese is that it’s basically pure casein in a plastic tub. It’s low fat and tastes pretty good which means cottage cheese is a great protein source for nighttime!

I Can’t Stand Cottage Cheese – Are there any alternatives?

If you absolutely can’t stand the taste or texture of cottage cheese, your best bet is just purchase a Casein Protein Powder. This will be quite a bit more expensive than cottage cheese, but it will provide the same benefit.

Another option would be to mix a whey protein shake with milk (which is 80% casein) and also eat some natural peanut butter at the same time. You’ll get your casein and the peanut butter will help slow the digestion process. Although not ideal, it’s better than not eating anything before bed.